Music
You Need to Hear this Song #18
Heavy Rotation — Laredo, Band of Horses (Infinite Arms, 2010)
Heavy Rotation was a music industry term for songs that one way or another got a lot of airplay. It referred to the large amount of rotation that a particular record got on turntables at radio stations. Since, until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, heavy rotation meant increased sales. These were good for record companies and artists alike.
Today, some of us still put records on at home and give them a spin. Most of us don’t. However, the term still applies, though in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.
For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song that you come back to from time to time and still feels just as good.
This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.
Here, I aim to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. We should know a bit about the band, a bit about where the song fits into its history and where the song fits into what was happening in music at that time. Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?
I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read than the song itself. To that end, I’ll put a Youtube clip of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I’ll stick a live clip on at the end.
What song is in your head right now? Here’s one that won’t leave mine today:
#18 — Laredo, Band of Horses (Infinite Arms, 2010)
Band of Horses has a new album out called “Things Are Great”. I love it already and my early favourite is “In Need of Repair”. Absolutely soaring melody on the chorus, a perfect driving song.
My man, Chris Zappa, already gave us an article on the album a few days ago and I think it’s bang on. He’s also got a pretty sick Substack newsletter that focuses on my kind of music. See if you can make the connection between the subtitle and his last name.
His view of the latest offering by this band doesn’t need retelling, since he said much of what I would have said, so instead of focusing on the present incarnation of Band of Horses, I’ll turn back the clock a decade and a bit and focus on Laredo, from 2010’s Infinite Arms as the song that’s in my head today.
Things start positively enough with a driving rhythm and uplifting guitar riff. It sounds hopeful; “Gonna take a trip to Laredo, gonna take a dip in the lake”. One assumes that the storyteller is talking about Laredo, Texas. I’ve never been, but a quick look at Googlemaps says that, yup, there is a lake there and the place is right on the Mexican border.
But then things start to darken. “Oh, I’m at a crossroads with myself, I don’t got no one else. And possibilities at the door, I won’t be needing them anymore”, sings Bridwell sounding lost and alone and contemplating a cross country road trip to sort things out. The beautiful video that goes with it unscores this.
Who among us hasn’t done or wanted to do the same at various points of our lives?
It would seem possible to decipher the lyrics as a cry for help from someone contemplating a drastic solution to their problems. “I put a bullet in my Kia Lorenzo, a kitchen knife up to my face. Throw me in the deep of Jammer Lake.”
But I prefer to interpret it as the words of someone who has lost someone dear to them and is in the midst of despair at the hole this has caused in their lives. “But oh, my love, don’t you even know? Oh, my love, are you really gone?”
The make up of the band has been in constant evolution since the first album, “Everything All the Time” in 2006. Bridwell has been the only constant and second in longevity is drummer, Creighton Barrett.
However, it is the harmonic partnership that Bridwell’s and keyboardist / guitarist Ryan Munroe’s voices create that, to me, is the true sound of this band. This is heard first in this song at 1:33 and the harmonic chords that follow the first chorus at 1:49 echo this plaintively but emphatically.
There is a beautifully simple guitar melody from 2:51 to 3:22 that ramps us up to the end of this song.
They played in Mexico City last night (May 7). Laredo was song #4. Wish I could have been there, but I’ll make a point of seeing them somewhere in America when they tour this summer.
Maybe a road trip is at hand.
Here they are, in their ragged glory, Live on Letterman in 2012
If you have made it this far, it will occur to you if this is #18 in this series, then there must be 17 previous one. This is a correct assumption and here I will like #17. At the bottom of it, you find a link to #16 and the bottom of it, you can — if you so choose — be taken to #15. This ingenious system that I thought up all by myself continues all the way to #1. They’re all on the The Riff, a very supportive publication about music that I really enjoy.
I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month and if you use this link, then I get a slice of that and I promise to use it to fill up my Kia Lorenzo on my next road trip.